Krishna
Krishna is one of the Hindu pantheon's most beloved deities. Much of his attractiveness comes from his differing personae, which all reveal the quality of a god engaged in play with the world, of which the people all around are completely unaware. This bronze statue, identified by the National Museum as an image of the dancing child Krishna, comes from the 15th century Vijayanagar Dynasty.
A Dutch Indologist later suggested that the statue was actually the Shaiva saint Sambandhar. He noted that images of the child Krishna usually show him holding a ball of butter, whereas Sambandhar's images have an upraised index finger, which refers to an event in his life.
This 10th century image from Cambodia (held at Chicago's Art Institute) shows Krishna holding up Mount Govardhana to protect his friends from Indra's wrath.
In the story, Krishna persuaded the villagers to make their offerings to Mount Govardhan (which is locally identified with Krishna) rather than to the storm-god Indra. Furious, Indra poured rain down on the village for a week, but Krishna held up Mount Govardhan like a giant umbrella. After a week Indra had to accept defeat, and the rains ended.
Since Krishna knows that he will defeat Indra, this story highlights the notion of "divine play" (lila). Some people also see this story as showing the eclipse of the Vedic gods (e.g., Indra) for the ones currently worshipped.
As Krishna grew older his deeds grew more heroic; this carving over a temple doorway (the Durgiana temple in Amritsar) shows Krishna subduing the venomous serpent Kaliya, who had poisoned the Yamuna all the way to the sea. In modern times this myth has been given a "green" interpretation in which Kaliya is seen as a symbol of the Yamuna River's ecological degradation.
As Krishna grew older, his playful activities took on a more erotic nature. This shows him with his flute, which he would use to call his devotees (the cowherd girls) tao dance with him on the banks of the Yamuna.
Here Krishna is with Radha, his special devotee who loved Krishna above all else. Her earliest developed mention is in Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, where she is a symbol for the human soul yearning for the divine. Later Vaishnava theologians described her as married to someone else, to highlight the all consuming quality of her love, which transgressed all social boundaries.